中國農村信用合作社屬於集體性質合作金融組織，以農業相關貸款為主要業務，前中國國務院總理朱鎔基在第九屆全國人大四次會議中強調「農信社是支持農村金融的主力軍」，農信社享有獨立法人資格並承擔推動農村金融發展責任，卻未履行應盡義務和金融功能，反而成為地方政府融通資金的「小金庫」。 本研究試圖解釋農信社的發展與改革，從制度角度探討其與地方政府、地方企業之間的互動關係。農信社成立於一九五零年代，自毛統治時期即扮演地方政府小金庫角色，改革開放後，中國政府嚴格禁止地方政府干預金融機構經營，並給予補貼及稅收優惠提升其營運績效，但農信社受制於歷史制度影響，被既有路徑鎖住無法擺脫過去包袱，導致其發展與改革始終處在出軌的狀態。 中國改革開放三十年，農信社歷經多次改革轉換依然被地方政府所掌控，本研究透過分析農信社內部黨系統成員名單與地方政企之間的重疊關係，觀察出地方政府如何躲避中央政策及法律限制，持續箝制農信社的發展與金融功能，試圖補充農信社相關文獻在此議題上的不足，並解釋農信社在地方—特別是以農業為主的貧困縣地區與地方政府和地方企業間的運作模式。 / Chinese Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCCs) is a collective-owned and cooperative financial institution, and its major business is to provide loans for agriculture-based projects. “The RCCs is the main force of agrian finance,” as such claimed by the former Chinese Premier Zhu, Rongji in the fourth session of the ninth National People’s Congress regarding the function and status of RCCs. Nonetheless, despite the RCCs is a separate legal entity and aims at promoting the development of agrian finance, it fails to do its work but becomes a private coffer of local governments. This study investigates the trajectory of development and reforms of RCCs first, and then explores the process from an institutional perspective by addressing the dynamic interactions between the RCCs, the local governments and the local enterprises. RCCs was first established in the 1950s, and has served as a private coffer for local governments since then. After launching the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, the central government attempted to prohibit the local governments to intervene the operation of RCCs on the one hand, and provided fiscal subsidies as well as tax reliefs to RCCs on the other. Yet the operation of RCCs has been locked into the pre-existing institutional practices shaped in Mao’s era and been “out of track” regardless of various reform attemps by the central government. This study argues that the organizational overlap between the branches of Chinese Communism Party in the local governments and RCCs largely explains why local governments could survive those reform attemps and persistentally gained the control of RCCs in the past 30 years. By examining the name lists of the party branches in the local governments and RCCs, I demonstrate that the local governments transferred the control of RCCs from administrative system to party system, thus they successfully circumvented the constrains of administrative policies and rules in various reform attemps by the central government. The finding also helps to explore the dynamic patterns of interaction among the local governments, RCCs, and local enterprises in those areas of agriculture-based economy, thus contributes to fill this gap in the literature of state-business research in China studies.

Diese Arbeit hat zum Ziel, marktunterstützende institutionelle Reformen im Transformationsprozess zu analysieren. Als Einstieg in die Thematik wird die Aufnahme mittel- und osteuropäischer Länder in die Europäische Union mit der zurückliegenden Süderweiterung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft verglichen. Die folgenden Kapitel befassen sich mit der Bedeutung weicher Budgetbeschränkungen in Transformationsökonomien. Zunächst werden anhand von Daten bulgarischer und rumänischer Unternehmen theoretische Erklärungsansätze für weiche Budgetbeschränkungen getestet. Im anschließenden Teil wird analysiert, ob Handelskredite einen Teil der normalen Geschäftspraxis darstellen oder ob Handelskredite starke Handelsverflechtungen zwischen Unternehmen unterstützen und damit die Wahrscheinlichkeit von weichen Budgetbeschränkungen erhöhen können. Im empirischen Teil werden Daten aus Ungarn und Rumänien verwendet, die aus Unternehmensbefragungen stammen. Im letzten Kapitel wird die Unternehmensebene verlassen und mit makroökonomischen Daten gearbeitet. Ziel ist es hier, den Einfluss institutioneller Reformen auf das Wirtschaftswachstum zu testen. / Main objective of this work is to analyse market-supporting institutional reforms in the transition process. In the first part of the dissertation, the upcoming enlargement of the European Union towards the east is compared with the earlier southern enlargement. Research in the following chapters is devoted to the problem of soft budget constraints in transition countries. Firstly, theories on the causes of soft budget constraints are empirically tested. Therefore a panel data set consisting of company account data for Bulgarian and Romanian firms is used. Secondly, firm-level survey data from Hungary and Romania is used to test whether trade credits are just part of normal business practice or whether trade credits are representing a systematic phenomenon supporting soft budget constraints of firms in transition. Thirdly, macroeconomic data is utilised to illustrate the impact of implementing institutional change on economic performance.

Cette thèse contient trois études sur le fonctionnement des banques.<p>Le premier Chapitre analyse empiriquement comment la capacité d’offrir des emprunts à long terme est influencée par la dimension des intermédiaires financiers.<p>Le deuxième Chapitre analyse, avec un model théorique caractérisé par la présence de soft-budget constraint, ratchet effect et short-termism, comment la pression compétitive influence la capacité des banque de financer le firmes ayant des projets de bonne qualité.<p>Le troisième Chapitre examine, avec un model théorique du type moral hazard common agency, le conflits d'intérêts des banques universelles.<p><p>Financial intermediaries are recognized to promote the efficiency of resource allocation by mitigating problems of incentives, asymmetric information and contract incompleteness. The role played by financial intermediaries is considered so crucial that these institutions have received all over the world the greatest attention of regulators.<p>Across and within banking sectors it is possible to observe a wide variety of intermediaries. Banks may differ in their size, market power and degree of specialization. This variety raises interesting questions about the features of a well functioning banking sector. These questions have inspired an important body of economic literature which, however, is still inconclusive in many aspects. This dissertation includes three studies intending to contribute in this direction.<p>Chapter 1 will empirically study the willingness of smaller and larger lenders to grant long-term loans which, as credit to SME's, constitute an opaque segment of the credit market. Chapter 2 analyzes, with a theoretical model, the effects of competition on the efficiency of the banking sector when this is characterized by dynamic commitment issues which brings to excessive refinancing of bad quality investments (so called soft-budget constraint) or excessive termination of good ones (ratchet effect and short-termism). Chapter 3 presents a model to investigate to what extent the distortions posed by conflicts of interest in universal banks can be addressed through the provision of appropriate incentive schemes by the different categories of clients. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

. / Corporate acquisitions are classified as part of “the market for corporate control” in which management teams are facing constant competition from other management teams. If the team that currently controls a company is not maximizing the value of the company’s assets, then an acquisition will likely occur and increase the value of the company by replacing its poor managers with good managers. This dissertation focus on two issues on mergers, the first compares the strategy between mergers and joint ventures. The second investigate how much liquidity should the acquirer preserve and what is the equilibrium price of the acquired firm in considering the merger strategy. Drawing upon the incomplete contract theory, I examine the criterion of the strategic choice between joint ventures (JVs) and mergers when two firms contemplate vertical integration. The model reaches the following conclusions: (1) some ownership provision to the acquired company after the mergers may prove to be more lucrative to the acquirer than 100% takeover; (2) given the same equity share arrangement for JVs and mergers I conclude that these two firms should choose to merge or be merged rather than JVs; (3) I derive the optimal equity share arrangement in both JVs and mergers when ownership provision is considered as a strategic means. In addition, I also compare the welfare and effort of both companies in JVs and mergers under symmetric cost structures, and find that mergers would provide greater social efficiency and welfare than 50-50 JVs when the acquirer’s equity share is between 30% and 65%. Firms are concerned that they may in the future be deprived of the funds that would enable them to take advantage of exciting growth prospects, strengthen existing investments or simply stay alive. I specifically examine a firm’s liquidity need in order to grasp any future opportunity of mergers and acquisitions. However, a firm’s manager (borrower) can shed his interim wrongdoings (misbehavior) under the pretext of further financial need for mergers and acquisitions because he knows that he can easily raise sufficient cash from lenders to cover any adverse shock. My study derives the conditions that when this soft-budget-constraint (SBC) problem will occur. It happens when the interim income is small. Moreover, I analyze how the purchase price of acquisition is affected by this soft-budget-constraint syndrome. If there is SBC problem, the acquisition price will be raised by the investors when the interim income is small. Besides, a firm with severe moral hazard problem will be merely able to offer a smaller purchase price for the acquisition. On the contrast, a firm with a stronger balance sheet will be able to secure a greater credit line and offer a more attractive price for the acquisition. The empirical study of U.S. firms during 1988 to 2006 supports my conclusions.